This used to always be a quiet time of year.

April always signalled the arrival of that much-welcomed calm after the winter whirlwind. It starts in the fall, when we begin gathering up the data for our annual Boatguide Buyer’s Guide. November is a blur, as we rush to complete the issue and get it off to the printer on time. With at least a half-dozen boat reviews to write, destination articles to proof, a buyer’s guide with a couple hundred boats and literally thousands of specs to check over, pricing to confirm, and goodness knows how many late nights trying to weed out the inevitable typos, the period from early November to early December simply rushes by.

That panic is immediately followed by another frantic rush to finalize our booth spaces at various winter boat shows. We attend boat shows across Canada, so there are flights and hotels to book, booths to arrange, signage to look after and part-time staff to hire. From early January, when the Toronto International Boat Show opens its doors, till the end of March when shows in Edmonton and Moncton wrap up for another year, it’s an endless parade of planes, trains and automobiles for all our staff.

April was when you could take a deep sigh, catch your breath, and start recharging those batteries.

This year we’ve pushed our spring break back a few weeks, in order to finish working on this major overhaul to our Boatguide website. There’s obviously still a lot more work to be done, but I think you’ll agree the new site is a huge upgrade in every way. Now, for the first time ever, our annual Buyer’s Guide appears online, and in a fully searchable form. And you can compare multiple boats, side-by-side. How cool is that?

A lot of the content you see - and will see shortly - on this website comes about as a direct result of conversations we've had with readers just like you (and maybe you specifically) at all those winter boat shows. We may have appeared bleary-eyed and glued to our coffee, but we were listening.

The new site framework has all kinds of awesome capabilities we haven’t switched on yet, as we’re still loading content and creating all-new features. So, you’ll continue to see new stuff added in the coming weeks. For Fiona, Byron, Jodi and the rest of the crew who put this puppy together for us – thank you. Drinks on the patio are on us, any time.

So, welcome aboard our spiffy new website. Let us know what you think. We all consider it a permanent work in progress, so if you have ideas of other things you’d like to see, we’re all ears.

- Craig